Heat coming to cold cases in St. Johns County

BOB MACK/The Times-Union
Detectives Sean Tice (left) and Robert Dean gather in the squad room with Angela Hosford (second from left), the evidence section manager and one of the people who will be trained to handle the DNA evidence, and Maribel Pumarejo, a civilian analyst, to go over evidence in the case of the 1982 homicide of Richard Jackson.

The St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office received a federal grant to submit possible DNA evidence taken from cold case homicides to a private lab for possible hits. The grant will enable the Sheriff’s Office to do its own processing for DNA screens. Detectives Sean Tice (right) and Robert Dean, who are the lead investigators, are trying to solve the cases that are depicted on a board behind the detectives in their squad room.

Shuri Sheppard is hopeful that answers to her mother’s slaying nearly 31 years ago in Ponte Vedra Beach will come with the help of an unusual source for solving such puzzling cases: the federal government.

Sheppard, the daughter of housewife Nancy Canode, is not alone. At least 30 unsolved homicide cases in St. Johns County and more than 200 in Jacksonville are the targets of a nationwide Department of Justice program designed in part to save police agencies money and give those victimized by homicide or rape a chance at closure.

That hope is being made possible locally by $720,000 in federal grant funds recently awarded to the Jacksonville and St. Johns County sheriff’s offices. A large chunk of the money will be used by detectives to submit pieces of evidence for DNA testing at private labs. Other money will be spent for training, equipment and other uses.

The 18-month grant is part of the Solving Cold Cases with DNA program that gave out more than $11 million to police agencies last year and more than $60 million overall since 2004. Any police agency is eligible to submit an application for a grant. Those awarded in Florida last year went to police agencies in Jacksonville ($500,000), St. Johns ($219,000) and Hollywood ($224,000).

Detective Sean Tice, a St. Johns cold case homicide investigator for three years, said some of the outstanding cases have little evidence. But others, like Canode’s, have weapons and other material that went mostly untouched because DNA testing was not available years ago.

“A lot of these cases have good possibilities of yielding some DNA evidence,” Tice said. “Without the grant, that would have been impossible or the time it would have taken would have been astronomical.”

St. Johns has set aside enough grant money to cover five tests for each of its unsolved homicides, which date back more than 30 years. The agency is using a private Virginia lab, which Tice has visited on several occasions to consult with crime scene analysts.

Jacksonville detectives will use several labs to test samples in 231 cold cases between 1990 and 2001, said Lt. Rob Schoonover, who leads the agency’s homicide unit.

Schoonover said he’s hopeful as many as 10 cases can be solved using modernized types of DNA testing. He said the goal is to “bring some closure to some of the victims’ families who’ve been waiting for such a long time.”

Tice said before getting the grant, his agency had to use its own money to send out cold case evidence for screening and analysis. That has most often been done with private labs because the Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab is routinely used for fresh cases.

The private lab route, slowed by budget cuts, includes finding a spot to be tested and then the test itself at a cost of up to $1,000 for each submission.

At least $7,000 had been spent last year on testing in the March 1981 death of Canode, who was found slain in the second-floor bedroom of her condominium. Canode, 39, had been strangled and stabbed.

Evidence, including the ligature and knife, was retested recently with negative results. Tice said he believes more testing can be done and hopes to use any money left over from the grant to do the work.

Tice said he is waiting on test results in two other cases submitted so far. The neck of a whiskey bottle and other evidence have been turned over to the lab in the 1982 slaying of Richard Jackson, a Jacksonville man found dead at the Sheraton of Anastasia Inn. Also submitted were Busch beer cans found near Philip Lane, a 41-year-old homeless man shot in 1992 under the County Road 312 bridge. Neither of their families could be reached to comment.

“To me a realistic goal with the number of cases we have is to successfully solve one through DNA testing,” Tice said. “If that’s the case, every bit of that money is worth it.”

Sheppard praised the work.

“I’m so impressed that they haven’t forgotten and are taking the time and the money and the effort to do it,” Sheppard said. “It means a lot to us.”

An arrest, for any of the families in Jacksonville or St. Johns, would take that meaning to a whole other level.

Anyone with information about unsolved homicide cases being investigated by the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office can call the agency at (904) 209-2192 or (888) 277-TIPS (8477) or text TIP231 plus your message to CRIMES (274637).

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